Page 5 of Each Their Own Devil

The corner of Nicolas’s mouth twitched at the mention of Aleja’s former life, but his face recovered quickly. “The memories in Unholy Relics can’t be faked, but it’s the Messenger I doubt, not you. If this apocalypse were real, don’t you think the Second would have told us?”

“Val says?—”

“Val is the Messenger’s son. He gave her the information she needed to capture the Third on our territory. There is a reason he’s a prisoner of war.”

“If they’re telling the truth, then we’re all dead. The Messenger could have killed me more than once, but she didn’t. Whatever she is planning, she thinks she needs me.” Aleja pulled the chunk of bone that Violet had given her from her pocket but hesitated. She hadn’t intended to hide the bone from Nicolas, but it still felt like sharing a secret she’d sworn to keep. “Violet also believes the Messenger. This is the bone of an Authority—she has the other one, and she claims she’ll send me memories through them.”

“Tell me exactly what the Messenger told you,” Nicolas whispered. Though his voice was intense, his eyes had gone distant, as if he was looking past Aleja into the light of a flickering streetlamp above a news kiosk, where graffiti screamed666across the shuttered door.

“I told her I’d help her kill the First if she helped me do the same to the Second, using Val’s research to keep the rest of us safe. She knows what he has done to us. I think she’s convinced herself that I want revenge on him.” Aleja wasn’t entirely sure that she didn’t want revenge, but those thoughts were too dangerous to release, like letting an enormous predatory bird free while you were trapped with it in a locked room.

Even in the strobe-like effect of the streetlamp, she saw Nicolas’s cheek dimple as if he were biting the inside of it. “That was good,” he eventually said.

“I’m not that great at thinking on the spot, okay, and—wait.Good?”

“She’ll know that information is dangerous to you if it gets out to the other Dark Saints. She won’t expect anyone to be helping you. If you can convince her to drop her guard, that’ll give you a chance to take her heart and fulfill your bargain with the Second.”

“So, you believe her after all?”

“I don’t understand it. All those centuries ago, we had time to talk before you snuck off to—before you left to see the Second. You would have told me if you wanted to.”

“It was a difficult time,” Aleja said, because it was the only thing she could say with certainty. It felt strange to speak for her former self when she had no real idea why that memory was the one she had chosen to share.

Nicolas’s gaze flickered to her eyes and then away. At least that, she could interpret. He had admitted he didn’t know what had been going through her mind when she snuck away to accept a punishment meant for him. A part of him might still believe she had seen it as an opportunity to escape the Hiding Place—and him—once and for all.

“You gave the relic to Bonnie, not to me,” Nicolas said. His voice had taken on the familiar bored flatness he always used when keeping emotions in check.

“Bonnie is the oldest of the Dark Saints, and she was loyal to the Hiding Place. It was a logical decision. And—” Aleja swallowed, acutely aware that she was voicing the thoughts of someone who didn’t truly exist anymore. “What would you have done if you’d seen that memory back then? Would you have raided the Astraelis realm to get answers from the Messenger? Maybe that Aleja was just trying to protect you, as you had always protected her.”

She couldn’t immediately tell if the words had been kind or cruel from the way Nicolas’s eyes burned. He squeezed their entwined fingers so hard it hurt, and the sting drew her closer—she would take any sensation from him. Pain meant they were both still alive. She rose to her toes, slamming her mouth against his; Nicolas was quick to react, but she had enough time to nip hard at his lower lip.

“I can’t pretend to know exactly why she did what she did,” Aleja said, pulling back by less than an inch. Nicolas’s breath was hot against her. “But I do know it was because she loved you.”

Nicolas drew her closer. His mouth forced hers open, but not before one of his canines grazed her upper lip in revenge. “We’ll see, Wrath,” he muttered into the kiss. He snatched one of her hands and dragged it to his chest, as if she could feel the snake tattoo writhing beneath his shirt—a reminder of how his love for her had almost destroyed him.

“If my old self wanted me to see this, she had her reasons,” she whispered. “We need to figure it out.”

“What we need…” Nicolas said, chasing after her mouth as she pulled away. He managed to plant another fierce kiss on her closed lips. “…is a librarian. I’ve already called them to the palace. I’ll go to the Second’s cave tomorrow. When it comes to the Messenger, nothing is ever straightforward. We need to learn more before we act. Use the bone to contact Violet. Get what you can out of her.”

“Nic, what do we do if they’re right? What if it turns out the First has to die, or we all do?”

Nicolas rubbed the bridge of his nose. His face was no longer gaunt, but his hair was wild, the silver streak cutting through black like a crack in obsidian. “Then we do what we can to help. The other Dark Saints are not going to like it, Aleja. If we allow the Messenger to get close, and she kills the Second without any of Val’s protections in place, I don’t need to tell you that?—”

“You don’t,” she said. The Hiding Place and its Dark Saints would be wiped out. All the witches of the world, blessed by the Second’s magic and knowledge, would die. She had already pictured her cousin Paola’s face enough tonight. “I’ll talk to Violet. What do we tell the Saints? They’re going to be eager to try to get the Third back.”

“We’ll think about it. For now, let’s see how you want to deal with Marc.”

Aleja took a step back. She had nearly forgotten they were standing in a dark alley that smelled of fried food because she had answered her first call as a Dark Saint. Her boot met a puddle, and the flickering light reflecting in the water turned the ground kaleidoscopic.

“He sounds like a piece of shit, but I don’t want to kill him.”

“Whatever you do, if he or his friends suspect Josephine has a hand in it, they’ll go after her again. We need to take care of the entire crew. As a Dark Saint, your fire can be used in more ways than you know. Draw some up around your hands and see if you can make it take a shape, like I do with the Umbramares.We’re still under my glamours for now. No one will pay attention to us.”

She had lived for so long with someone else’s voice in her head that it was the first avenue Aleja tried. The absence of it still felt like a phantom pressure—something that wasn’t supposed to be there but still lingered, heavy and undeniable.Are you there?she asked softly.

Nothing answered. Or, at least, not in the way she was used to. Instead there came a sensation of questioning. At her fingertips, the fire coalesced, but she could predict the way it moved across her skin—as if she was telling it what to do before she had the idea herself. Two uneven wings rose in licks of dark red, then separated from the core of flame altogether. Theyflapped out of time with one another before sinking back into the pool of fire around her hands.

“Do you think Marc and his buddies are going to be scared off by a malformed baby bird?” she asked.

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